


Life's Little Pleasures

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Immortal Beings Trying Human Things, Implied Sexual Content, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Meg likes sleeping and Castiel doesn't get it.
Relationships: Castiel/Meg Masters
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Life's Little Pleasures

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as belated birthday present for my friend Karla. Happy birthday!

Technically, they didn’t need sleeping, and no matter how many times Meg explained to Castiel that she liked sleeping, he just couldn’t get past that fact.

“Sleeping has a function for humans. It helps them rest their bodies and strengthens their cognitive functions like alertness and memory. We are immortal, occupying bodies that aren’t ours and already are alert and have perfect memories. I don’t understand.”

Meg sighed and turned around on the bed in such occasions, to stare at him tiredly.

“Yes, okay, I don’t need it,” she admitted. “But I like doing it anyway.”

It could go back and forth for hours at a time like this, neither of them willing to see the other’s argument.

Castiel noticed Meg had the use of falling asleep the first time they’d had sex. After they were done, they’d laid in each other’s arm in silence for a very long time. Meg’s back was turned to him and he had his nose sank in her thick hair, content and satisfied like he hadn’t been in a while. He was lucky to be with her, and he hadn’t expected ever to have feelings that ran so deep for a demon, of all things.

So while their breathing calmed down, as he held her close to his chest, he figured it would be a good moment to let her know exactly how he felt.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.

Meg didn’t answer. He didn’t expect her to answer or to say it back, really, knowing her and how much she hated any sort of display for feelings and things like that. But he had expected a reaction, at least, some sort of laughter or her calling him an idiot. Something.

Instead, her silence was deafening. Now, Castiel had fought against the hordes of hell itself. He had confronted Lucifer in his true vessel. He had rebelled against everything he once knew and sworn his life to defend. There were many, many occasions when he thought he was going to die, and a few times when he had, actually, died.

No other time had he felt as disconcerted and terrified as when he said those words and Meg didn’t move a muscle or say a word to him. Like she hadn’t heard him at all or like she didn’t care. He didn’t know which option was worse.

“Meg?” he called out after a few seconds.

Meg still didn’t react. Was there something wrong with her? He moved his hands, feeling up her body, but she still felt warm and her chest was raising and falling, mimicking breathing even though she didn’t actually need to breathe. It was something he had noticed demons did. A sort of muscle memory, he figured: when they possessed a body, even if they’d forgotten everything else about being human, they imitated humanity by breathing and moving in a way that felt more natural than when angels took a vessel. He had noticed it with angels that came to earth for the first time, and he had been told by the Winchester that he’d once behaved like that too. Rigid, alien, like he didn’t know what to do with his new physicality. And yes, it had taken him a few years to get used to inhabiting a body and moving in it.

So this stillness in Meg, her unresponsiveness was strange and worrying. He grabbed her shoulder and delicately turned her over as he called her name again.

And finally, a reaction: Meg groaned and opened her eyes to shoot him a glare of pure irritation.

“What?” she snapped at him.

That was a lot more like her and Castiel let the relief wash over him.

“You weren’t… you were…”

“I was _sleeping_.”

Castiel blinked at her. The meaning of her words failed to sink into his mind, like she had spoken in a language he didn’t comprehend. Which wasn’t possible, because as an angel, he had a rough understanding of every human language and some demonic ones too.

“Sleeping?” he repeated.

“Yes. Having a little post-sex nap,” Meg said, now completely turning around on the bed to face him. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“But you… you are a demon.”

“You say the most romantic things, Clarence,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

Castiel was annoyed. He had said a very romantic thing just a minute ago, it wasn’t his fault Meg hadn’t heard it. Because she was _sleeping._

Before he could protest, though, Meg nuzzled his neck and wrapped her arms around him.

“Well, since you woke me up,” she mumbled, “we might as well go for round two.”

So that was what they did. And in fairness, the incident slipped Castiel’s mind because, as always, there were many other things that needed their attention. He really didn’t think about it again until two weeks later when he had to run into one of their safe houses, holding Meg in his arms while she held a hand to the bleeding wound on her side and demanded Castiel put her down.

“Those bastards broke my chair!” she protested as Castiel leaned her down on the couch. “IMy battle chair! You know how long I spent costumizing it? ’m going to kill them!”

“And you’d be within your right to do so, but you’re no in conditions to go after them right now!”

Meg looked up at him and crooked an eyebrow.

“You’re one to talk.”

Castiel had been so busy trying to pull Meg out of the fight after a hellhound crashed against her wheelchair and dropped her to the ground that he hadn’t even realize that someone had slashed his coat sleeve. And yes, his forearm was bleeding and there was a pulsating ache in his eye where one demon had punched him, but Meg was in worse condition, with her lip bloodied, her jeans ripped where the hellhound had bit into her leg to try and drag her away and, most worrying of all, the side wound where someone had attempted to stab her with an angel blade.

“Let me see.”

“I’ll be fine,” Meg protested, but she did raise her hands and let Castiel pull her shirt over her head. “It’s just a scratch.”

It looked much worse than a scratch, with a strip of skin hanging over the gushing wound, but it wasn’t as deep as Castiel had feared.

“That’s going to need stitches,” he determined.

Meg groaned and protested, but she knew he was right. Angel blade wounds on demons didn’t heal as well unless tended to, so she accepted the bottle of whiskey that he handed her and drank its contents down while laying on her stomach as he worked with a thread and needle.

“Always so sweet on me, Clarence,” she said, with a laugh.

“Please, don’t move so much.”

“Gotta say, I didn’t mind it when you just smote people with your bare hands, but seeing you get all righteous warrior with your blade… well, made me feel all manners of hot and bothered.”

Castiel stared up at her in surprise. Was she really flirting? In a moment like that?

Not that he minded, of course. He had been entirely too focused on her wound and only know he realizes just how much skin Meg was really showing. She rarely, if ever, bothered with underwear, so her back was bare and he could see the old scars etched on her skin, scars he’d traced with his fingers and his tongue…

His self-control had gone to hell since he’d fallen, that was true, but he swore Meg made it harder on him sometimes because it amused her. He refocused on the needle and tried to ignore the sudden uncomfortable tightness in his slacks.

Meg chuckled to herself and took another swig of her whiskey. Castiel tried very hard not to notice the way her lips looked around the neck of her bottle.

“It should be fine,” he commented as he finished the suture.

“Good. So… what do we do now?”

He had the impression there was a double-entendre to that question, but then again, he always felt like there was a double-entendre to everything Meg said to him.

“I need to call Sam and Dean, let them know we couldn’t get the book because it was heavily guarded,” he said.

“Alright.” Meg sat up, gulped down the rest of the whiskey and gave Castiel a wicked smile. “I’m gonna go to bed.”

There was definitely an invitation to her words this time, so maybe his report to the Winchesters was a little more rushed than it needed to be. He knew Meg had teleported upstairs, to their bedroom, and would be waiting for him, the rest of her clothes off for another night spent together in a close embrace…

He opened the door, shrugging off his coat and loosening his tie… only to find Meg wrapped up in a blanket and, once again, sound asleep. She had discarded the rest of her clothes on the floor, but instead of beckoning to him and whispering enticing words, she had her eyes close, her lips a little slack and her head turned away from him.

He had never understood the human need for a cold shower until that moment. Yes, he could have woken her up, certainly, but judging by how she’d reacted the last time, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. And besides, she had been harmed in the fight. Perhaps sleeping was her way of recovering from that.

He still couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated as he slunk away downstairs to start strategizing for their next move.

It was almost dawn by the time he heard the creak of Meg’s second wheelchair, her non-battle one, coming up behind him.

“Hey,” she said, parking herself next to the armrest where she was and leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “Missed you on the bed last night.”

She looked much better, with her hair freshly brushed and the bruises and cuts on her face already fading, but Castiel noticed she winced a little when she moved from the chair into his lap.

“Well… you seemed tired,” he commented. He tried not to sound bitter, but he must not have succeeded.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s no matter,” Castiel said. “You were… sleeping.”

“Yeah, but you could have woke me up for some tender, loving care,” she said, running a finger from his cheek down to his neck. “You know how I get after a battle.”

She nibbled at his earlobe before she moved her mouth down to nuzzle at his neck. Which was very, very nice, but it didn’t detract from the feeling of frustration in his gut.

“You didn’t really need to be asleep in the first place,” he commented.

That made Meg stop her ministrations and move back to stare at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You are a demon. Your body is animated by a soul corrupted in hell. You don’t need to… rest.”

He probably should have kept those concerns to himself. Meg didn’t climb down from his lap, but the way she scoffed at him made him think he was missing something in that context.

“Yeah, okay, I don’t _need_ it. But I like taking a nap now and then.”

“I don’t see the purpose. You are not a human, Meg.”

Meg shook her head in disbelief at him.

“So? I like it.”

“That’s no reason…”

“Come on, Cas, it’s not like there aren’t lots of human things you do for the hell of it,” Meg pointed out. “What about drinking?”

“You do that,” Castiel pointed out.

“Eating?”

“Again, that’s you.”

Meg opened her mouth and closed it again, before she raised a finger in triumph.

“Sex!” she declared. “We don’t _need_ to have sex, because, unlike humans, we’re only borrowing these meatsuits and we can’t have children.” She stopped for a second and tilted her head. “We can’t, can we? Should we double-check the lore?”

“That is different,” Castiel argued.

“Why?”

It was his turn to be left speechless. She was right, it was a harmless activity that she did to pass the time and she enjoyed, though he could hardly see the appeal. He had slept before, yes, but it was always when his grace was depleted or when he was human, both states that had been less than enjoyable for him. And besides, wasn’t it dangerous? She could be caught unaware by enemies. She could…

She laughed at his argument.

“Come on. No one is gonna catch me unaware. I have my very own angel watching over me.”

She had a very distracting way of ending arguments.

“You know, since Dumb and Dumber don’t have a better plan to get the damn book and it will take a couple of days for my new battle chair to get here, it seems we’re going to be stuck here for a while,” she commented later, as she laid her head over his chest. “Maybe you should start practicing other human pleasures besides this.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So maybe you won’t be so pressed about me sleeping a couple of hours.”

And with that, she rolled away from him and proceeded to lay very still. Castiel didn’t know if she was really sleeping now just to spite him, but he wouldn’t put it past her.

He gave it a go. He stared at the ceiling for a very long time, trying to will his mind to go to sleep, but he was unsuccessful. Instead, he turned to look at the back of Meg’s head for a while and watched her.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. He was reminded of the way he had found her years ago, outside the warehouse where Lucifer had stashed the tablets, her body broken and bloodied and unresponsive. He realized that was an overreaction on his part. He had seen Sam and Dean plenty of times, and he had no trouble when they went to sleep. Perhaps the difference was that he knew sleeping came naturally to them, but not to Meg.

Maybe it was that he didn’t like this loneliness, the sensation that she was so far away from him. He wanted to be with her for as long as he could, because he was aware that their time could be precious and short. That always dangled over their heads. But maybe it wasn’t healthy. Maybe he needed to fill up this time with something that would help his anxiety and stop him from waking her up.

He turned his attention to ceiling again. Perhaps Meg was right. He had done human things when he had lost his grace and he had enjoyed them. Not… urinating. Or having to brush his teeth. Those things were mind-numbingly boring and he never got used to them. And he could get drunk, given enough patience and alcohol, but that also brought up a lot of… negative emotions.

There was one thing, though, that he had actually enjoyed, aside from sex.

He grabbed Meg’s shoulder and shook her lightly.

“What?” she groaned after a few seconds.

“Do we have peanut butter?”

That made her raise her head to look at him.

“What for?”

“I want to try something.”

Meg’s eyes opened wide and glimmered a little.

“We have some in the kitchen, I think.”

“I will be right back.”

Castiel stood up and only bothered to put on his boxers before going down. The peanut butter jar in the fridge was only half-full, and he also found some bread that he proceeded to toast. They didn’t have jelly, but he figured it would be alright. He spread the peanut butter on the toast and sat down on the table.

The first bit tasted like molecules, but after moving his tongue around for a moment and getting used to it… yes, there was the sweetness and the stickiness that he had liked as a human. The second bite went much better and the third one even better. It was only a matter of concentrating on the whole rather on the individual, like stepping away from a picture to take in the whole thing instead of a single detail at a time.

Meg appeared in the kitchen when he was just to start with the second toast, wrapped up in his dress shirt and, he imagined, little else.

“Are you serious?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You told me I should try human activities I liked,” Castiel said. “I remember this was something I liked when humanity was forced upon me.”

He took a bite of the toast and closed his eyes, savoring the peanut. He then opened them up to find Meg staring at him still.

“I’m sorry, did you want some?” he offered.

And for reasons that he didn’t understand, she threw her head back and laughed.

“What is so funny?”

“Nothing, Clarence, nothing,” she said, still chuckling. She moved her chair closer so she could move to his lap again. That was, apparently, her favorite place to sit and Castiel couldn’t say he minded. “I’m glad you’re giving into life’s little pleasures after all.”

“I don’t think I will be sleeping any time soon,” he admitted. “But yes, this is rather… enjoyable.”

He held the toast up for Meg and she bit into eat. She chewed on it for a moment and swallowed. Castiel smiled. He guessed he understood a bit better now.

“Say,” Meg started, running her fingers through his hair, “you know what else we could use peanut butter for?”


End file.
